International
Wife-turned-critic of Peru ex-president dies
AFP
Peru’s former first lady Susana Higuchi — wife-turned-critic of ex-president Alberto Fujimori and mother of opposition leader Keiko Fujimori — died Wednesday of cancer, her family said on Twitter.
Higuchi, the daughter of Japanese immigrants, was 71 years old and had been hospitalized in Lima for a month.
“After a hard battle with cancer, our mother Susana Higuchi has departed to meet God,” tweeted daughter Keiko, who has run, and lost, three presidential races.
An engineer by training, Higuchi had four children with Alberto Fujimori, whose campaign she financed in 1990 when he was an unknown and unable to raise money for his ultimately successful presidential run against the favored candidate, the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa.
The pair divorced, and Higuchi accused her ex-husband of domestic violence and corruption, becoming a vocal critic of his regime from the opposition benches.
In 1994, while still first lady, Higuchi told reporters that she had been held hostage and tortured by her husband. They divorced that year, and Keiko Fujimori — then only 19 — became Peru’s first lady.
Higuchi said she was tortured after denouncing relatives of Alberto Fujimori for allegedly selling Japanese donations meant for poor people.
In 1994, she tried to challenge Fujimori for the presidency, but he passed a law preventing close relatives from succeeding him.
She had a five-year career until 2006 as a popular member of an anti-Fujimori party in congress, causing a deep rift in the family.
Reconciled, she endorsed two of her daughter’s three presidential runs, in 2016 and 2021.
“She was surrounded by the love of us, her children, and her grandchildren until the last moment,” tweeted Keiko Fujimori, who had in the past dismissed her mother’s claims as “myths.”
Alberto Fujimori, 83, is in hospital under police protection for a heart condition.
He has been serving a 25-year prison sentence since 2007 for corruption and crimes against humanity during his 10-year term.
International
Meta Says Russia Seeks to Ban WhatsApp for Defending Secure Communication
U.S. tech giant Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, said that Russia is seeking to ban the messaging app because it “challenges government attempts to violate people’s right to secure communication.”
Russian authorities have encouraged citizens to switch to state-backed applications, and in August they already blocked WhatsApp’s calling feature.
On Friday, the communications regulator Roskomnadzor claimed that the platform was being used to “organize and carry out terrorist acts in the country, recruit perpetrators, and facilitate fraud and other crimes.”
“If the messaging service does not comply with Russian law, it will be completely blocked,” the regulator warned.
WhatsApp remains one of Russia’s most widely used messaging services, alongside Telegram.
Moscow is pressuring both platforms to grant authorities access to user data upon request for investigations into fraud and activities the government labels as “terrorist.”
Human rights advocates fear the demand could be used to target critics of the Kremlin, President Vladimir Putin, or the war in Ukraine.
International
Archbishop Wenski criticizes Trump’s deportation policies, calls for stronger push for reform
The Archbishop of Miami, Thomas Wenski, has called for increased pressure on the U.S. Congress to advance comprehensive immigration reform and criticized President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policies, arguing that they “do nothing to help.”
“We need to apply more pressure on Congress so lawmakers can make the necessary changes. It is also important for the Administration to listen to our voice. We do not want to be anyone’s enemy—we are Americans,” Wenski said in an interview with EFE.
The religious leader, who heads one of the dioceses with the largest Latino and Haitian populations in the United States, issued a call to defend the rights of migrants. He also emphasized that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has maintained a strong and public stance in favor of migrants for decades.
International
Trump relaunches diplomatic push to finalize U.S.-Backed peace plan for Ukraine War
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that his diplomatic team will resume meetings with delegations from Russia and Ukraine in an effort to pressure both sides to accept the peace plan proposed by Washington to end the war in Ukraine.
As part of this new round of talks, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll will hold discussions with Ukrainian representatives to narrow differences on the remaining points of the agreement.
Trump also confirmed his intention to meet personally with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and with Putin, though he emphasized that such meetings will only take place “when the agreement is fully finalized or in its final stage.”
The president claimed that his administration has made “tremendous progress” toward resolving the conflict and reiterated that the war “never would have started” if he had been in the White House at the onset of the crisis.
The U.S.-backed peace plan consists of 28 points and has been revised following feedback from both sides. According to Trump, only “a few points of disagreement” remain under active discussion.
One of the most controversial aspects of the proposal is the suggestion that Ukraine cede parts of the Donbas region to Russia and limit the size of its armed forces. Kyiv is working closely with Washington to soften these clauses in search of an arrangement that does not compromise its sovereignty or security.
With this diplomatic push, Trump aims to solidify his role as the main mediator in the conflict and steer the war toward a political resolution after years of devastation, humanitarian crisis, and rising global geopolitical tensions.
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